You have managed to get to the flop with a good hand but what next? Many of us put so much effort into preflop play that we don’t build a solid postflop game. A key part of postflop play (as with preflop) is knowing the type of players you are up against and playing specifically to counter their style.

Overall there are 4 main types of poker player, tight-loose and passive-aggressive. In free online poker micro stakes (.02/.05 blinds), each style of player tends to make certain key errors. In this free online poker article we will focus on postflop play against the Loose Aggressive type opponent.

The LAG – Loose Aggressive aka the Maniac
LAGs always bet and raise much to often. 33% of flops long-term).

The key to beating them is knowing that their range in any situation is very wide. What this means is that if you flop second or third pair, calling their bets and raises is often hugely profitable because they’re betting repeatedly with absolutely nothing so often.

They’re somewhat difficult to play against because it takes a lot of guts – calling 3 streets (each a relatively large bet, usually) with third pair weak kicker is not particularly easy, but you have to realize that against some of these guys third pair is basically the same as top pair and so you just shouldn’t fold.

But with that said do not universally call any pair against an LAG as there are degrees of maniac and while the true LAG bets and raises 100% of the time some do not.

Yet another thing to note is your draws (and as a result, suited and connected hands preflop) rocket in value as if you get the draw you may often get paid back bigtime (you may be recognising this as implied odds, but I’ll leave that subject for now and cover it later.).

So ultimately against these players pair hands go up in value and draws go up in value. Pay attention at the tables to get a good feel for a player’s range (is he a true spewing maniac, or is he just hyper-aggressive) and try to make these profitable “thin” (not super easy) calldowns against these players.

As a rule also wait for the river before you raise LAGs with your strong hands as they will be betting all the way anyway so you will lose value if you raise them at the flop or turn and make them fold.

Remember, everything is in degrees! Some TAGs are almost LAG, some TPs are almost LPs, etc, so you have to adjust your play to your individual opponents, these player types are just a tool to help you do that.

Learning to recognize player types and the degree to which a player fits a type isn’t easy. Yes, sorry to say, plenty of practice is required though if you really focus on this and keep good game notes it will come faster for you. If you’re new to poker do not risk much or even any cash as you learn.

Start of with the lowest stakes games or with free online poker games and work up from there. For the big edition of this article which covers all the player styles and adds some further postflop tips see the free online poker games blog at NoPayPOKER.